128 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



Those very operations which farmers call practical, and 

 upon which they rely in decrying "book farming" wt'iv 

 first made known l>y science, and through the writings of 

 scientific men. 



These views have an immediate and practical bearing on 

 the cultivation of wheat in the Western States. 



Hitherto the want of enough cleared land has led farm- 

 ers to put in wheat among the corn, and half put it in at 

 that. Others have plowed their fallows, or their irrass 

 lands, so early in the season, that rains and settling have 

 made it hard again by seed-time. Then, without stirring it, 

 the grain has been thrown (away) upon it, and half har- 

 rowed in and left to its fate. Equally bad has been the 

 system of late single plowing. Others have given their 

 grain no soil to bed their roots in ; a scratched surface 

 receives the grain ; its roots, like the steward, cannot dig, 

 and so get no hold ; and are either winter killed, or subsist 

 upon the scanty food of the three or four inches of top soil. 

 With some single exceptions, wheat cannot be said to have 

 been cultivated yet. The two great operations in render- 

 ing soil productive of wheat, are either the development of 

 the materials already in the soil ; or, the addition to the 

 soil of properties which are wanting. 



Much land yielding only twelve or fifteen bushels, by a 

 better preparation would, just as easily, yield thirty. Let 

 us suppose that a common plowing of four or five inches, 

 precedes sowing. Out of this superficial soil the wheat is 

 to draw its food. Constant cropping has, perhaps, already 

 diminished its abundance. Then wheat is rank in stem, 

 short in the head, and light in the kernel. But below there 

 is a bed of materials untouched. The subsoil, if brought 

 up, exposed to the ameliorating influence of the ele- 

 ments, will furnish in great abundance the elements 

 required. The simple operation of deep and thorough 

 plowing will, often, be enough to increase the crop one-half. 

 Deep plowing gives a place for the roots, which will not be 



